Dispatch from Paris: Endangered Bouquinistes Need Your Help

Paris remains a beacon of culture and sophistication and a week spent promenading along the city’s quais and quaint streets was balm for the soul. Among the many familiar sights were the bouquinistes, those riverside booksellers whose forest green stalls have been a fixture by the Seine since at least the 18th century. The tradition of traveling bookselling in Paris goes back even further; known as “libraries forain,” wandering booksellers plied their trade as early as the 1550s when they were accused of distributing Protestant propaganda during the Wars of Religion. Open-air bookstalls were banned in 1649, and meandering booksellers were chased out of the city by Louis V during the 1720s. The ill-fated Louis XVI tolerated their return in the 1750s, and by the time Napoleon I took power, the bouquinistes had reestablished their territory along the riverbank, where they’ve remained a fixture ever since.

Yet, the bouquinistes as we know them are in danger of turning into little more than trinket shops with matching roofs. Read all about it on the Fine Books Blog.